Episode 37: How Co-Owners, Allie and Andrew Taylor, Navigate the Personal and Professional Relationship Within Orange Kiwi.

In this episode your host Natalie Kling sits down with Andrew and Allie Taylor—spouses, co-CEOs, and founders behind Conveyance Solutions (ERP implementations for industrial distributors) and Orange Kiwi (family-business consulting). They unpack Andrew’s shift from sole CEO to sharing the reins with Allie—what it cost in control and “relational equity,” and what it unlocked in scale and systems. You’ll hear their simple but powerful shorthand—“squiggly line vs. straight line”—for balancing entrepreneurial improvisation with operational discipline, and how a family “safe word” (“albatross”) protects home life from shop talk. Allie frames why emotional intelligence (self-awareness, other-awareness, self-regulation) is a core performance driver in family firms, while Andrew illustrates how “rational” debates (like upgrading an ERP) often mask identity and control concerns. They share candid lessons on working with three of their six kids in the business, the dangers of enablement and artificial harmony, and why embracing community and grace—for yourself and each other—keeps a multigenerational enterprise healthy. Yes, you'll recognize the practiced sense of "therapy" in their personal and professional structure and that's no wonder. It's quite intentional, actually. "Allie" is Dr. Allie Taylor and holds a PhD in psychology. Enjoy the episode.

To learn more about Orange Kiwi, you can visit the website: www.ockiwi.com

If you would like more information about Conveyance Soutions, visit: www.conveyance365.com

Chapter Summaries

(00:00) Navigating Challenges in Family Businesses
Andrew and Allie share their experience as co-CEOs of their family business, discussing the challenges of scaling and balancing spontaneity with necessary systems.
(10:03) Navigating Emotions in Family Businesses
Balancing family dynamics and business operations in family-run enterprises, using "albatross" as a safe word, and the importance of emotional intelligence.
(18:25) Navigating Family Business Dynamics
Family businesses face challenges blending dynamics, navigating conflict, and adapting to generational resistance.
(28:32) Balancing Family Dynamics in Business
Family businesses led by first-generation founders struggle with transitioning to modern systems and balancing family involvement with individual aspirations.
(38:45) Family Business Challenges With Grace
Entrepreneurial families face mental health challenges, coping behaviors, and the role of luck in achieving success.

To learn more about the Capital Region Family Business Center visit our website HERE

Transcript

00:00 - Natalie  (Host)
Well, andrew and Allie, welcome to A Seat at the Table. I am personally really excited to have you here because you not only understand family businesses from a perspective of serving family businesses, but you are also a family business. So I think we are really grateful to have you, because it's going to be a unique. You're uniquely positioned to have a very real conversation about the challenges and the beauty of family business. So I'd like to start with you, andrew. You had a recent transition. You personally went through the experience of going from the sole CEO of one of your companies, conveyance Solutions, to co-CEOs with your wife, allie and, in the process, having to give up a level of control. That is not unlike the experience of transitions that happen across family businesses all the time, where one family member has to give up part or all of their vision and sort of soul control to allow another family member to take the reins or, in this case, share the reins. So tell us a little bit about that experience for you. 

01:14 - Andrew (Guest)
Yeah, thank you, natalie, it's super good to be here with you. Ali and I are married, so I guess I gave up soul CEO a number of years ago when I first married her at least of my personal life and I think I'm an accidental entrepreneur. I think many entrepreneurs actually get there accidentally and if anybody tells you that they have their business plan all figured out at the beginning and that's the way it works out, then I don't think they've ever done this. But we've certainly experienced that reality of starting an initial firm called Orange Kiwi, which we'll talk about in a little bit, and then conveyance solutions really spun off that as a result of market opportunities and so we do ERP implementations and migrations for large industrial distributors across North America. We had a team spread across the country. It grew on the back of opportunity and when we were young in our relative business careers as entrepreneurs you take whatever kind of comes in front of you and we built and this thing took off and has grown really rapidly over the last three or four years, in part because I just followed my nose with Ali's encouragement and it got to a point where Ali kept pushing me to scale it and I'm not a natural scaler scaler in the sense of scaling a business and the structure and systems that come with that. 

02:33
I think a lot of entrepreneurs and owners get to that point where they have a decision to make. Do they continue to build the business around themselves and their particular personality and quirks and strengths and weaknesses and you can build a pretty substantive business that way or do you start to build a management and leadership team around you that can carry the business with or without you? And Ali was uniquely positioned to come alongside me as a co-CEO in Convance and that has been a challenging and positive year all at once. The business would not be where it is today without Ali's skill as a COO. But it's also been an emotional journey in the sense of when you're a fledgling entrepreneur, you build people around you that you like working with and you're talking every day and collaborating every day and making stuff up on the fly and making stuff happen and solving problems real time and not thinking too much about the implications beyond, but just solving the problem at hand. That's what makes a new business start and grow and it's really essential and critical and I think for me. 

03:42
I value deep one-to-one relationships and losing those relationships in a sense now that I don't talk to my management team nearly as much because now I'm CRO, ali is COO, so I'm running sales and revenue side of the business. 

03:56
Most of the operational team reports up to Ali. That loss of connection that actually for me was really important and I don't think as business owners we always appreciate the level of connection and relational equity that we're getting out of our businesses. Some days we go home on a Friday night and go. I just could fire all of them, right. We sometimes that's a feeling, but there's a reality there that we work with people we really like and enjoy working with and when that moves and shifts to another family business member or another professional manager that we bring into the business, there's an emotional disconnect that happens with our team. But I think what has been really challenging for me and has forced me to process over this past year of what it means to give up not just control but a measure of relational equity that I had built in the heat of battle. 

04:43 - Natalie  (Host)
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think it's very relatable, especially as you said, and it doesn't even have to be a founding CEO or majority owner. It's really. But when somebody has had, well, I guess it would be really the people who have had majority ownership for a while, and when they have to transition, that it's so true. 

05:06
The amount of systems and processes that take the place of the spontaneity and the relationships and the creativity is very difficult for people, very difficult, and there's a grief in that, because you're going, oh my gosh, I'm building this thing as I go and it's, it's. There's a grief in that, because you're going, oh my gosh, I built, I'm building this thing as I go, and there's so much adrenaline and energy and and then to have to to sort of see this sort of and not that this is I want to use the word bureaucracy because I think there's a lot of then with the systems and processes and you have to kind of create this layer of bureaucracy. That's really that you don't want, right? That was like exactly what you intentionally didn't create in the beginning. So tell me a little bit about that from and Ali, you're welcome to jump in too, because all of that bureaucracy, as I just air quoted, is also really important in growing a business, and so tell me a little bit, you guys, about the conversations you've had to have around. 

06:06 - Andrew (Guest)
That, as I just air quoted, is also really important in growing a business, and so tell me a little bit, you guys, about the conversations you've had to have around that you know, because that's really challenging. I'll go first and then I'll let Ali straighten me out here. We argue about it, you realize. Realize that causes arguments and one of the challenges of being husband and wife is being able to put the personal and professional aside and separate them. And that's super challenging because you can say that's easy and like you, just get to five o'clock on a Friday and you're back to husband and wife for the weekend. It's not the way it works and sometimes the spillover from business agreement can spill into personal and vice versa. We're a blended family. We have six kids together, we've done it all together and keeping separation between those is sort of a side issue to your question. 

06:57
Natalie, I get the bureaucratic statement because at times for a free-flowing, seripitous squiggly line, ellie and ellie and I have this code between us that I need squiggly lines. Sometimes I just need to follow the flow of the river, where it goes, who, who knows. But it'll be a fun journey and we'll figure stuff out along the way. Ellie, at times like no, I need a straight line conversation, I've got to get us from a to c and I can't be going to andrew's H, k, v and back again, and so but it's so fun, yes, exactly, and you find deals along the way and you overturn rocks and there's gold nuggets that you didn't know were there, and so we have a little code. 

07:37
That has actually been really helpful. Are we having a squiggly line conversation or are we having a straight line conversation? So to get away from bureaucracy and process and systems and use that business language. Sometimes I just need to say, ali, I just need a squiggly line, you just got to let me begin my way through this and have a conversation about it, and I don't need it turned into a business process, and Ali sometimes needs straight line conversations. Sure. 

08:01 - Allie (Guest)
I don't think bureaucracy is a bad word. 

08:03
I think, as you guys were talking, research and the theories and the models and the psychological constructs and everything that makes us human and makes a business work, was all flowing through my mind. I think, at the end of the day, what we're really wrestling with is human need human need for purpose, human need for meaning, human need for identity. Human need for meaning, human need for identity, human need for place, human need for a goal achievement. Some of us have a higher need for that than others and it's really. It's hard in family businesses because we're navigating the tensions of family system dynamics and organizational growth all at the same time. I think for me, in the conversations with Andrew and I, wired as differently as we are, the thing that I hold on to, in addition to all of our shortcuts that we've created, is that we're really good together and we're best when it's somewhere in the middle Not my extreme, not his extreme and being really intentional about how we build that into our business culture reduces bureaucracy and enables more efficiency and cohesiveness and less stress. 

09:09 - Natalie  (Host)
So like who raises their hand first and goes we need a break or what? At what point? How do you keep your family relationship sacred? 

09:21 - Allie (Guest)
Oh no, don't say albatross sacred. 

09:25 - Andrew (Guest)
Oh no. 

09:26 - Allie (Guest)
Don't say albatross. It depends on the kid that's present, in part because there's six of them and they're all different. Three are in the business. One was in the business part-time, so that would have been four at one time, and two aren't, and so the two kids that aren't. It's really hard for them if we talk about business when they're around, so we try not to. And for the other kids it depends. Some kids enjoy it and some kids don't. 

09:52 - Natalie  (Host)
And what about for you as a couple? How do you keep that prioritized? Well, let's see what. 

09:59 - Andrew (Guest)
Andrew says so albatross is our code word. So Allie made a reference to albatross and listen, like what is she talking about? And we have given, we have given some of our kids the permission to use the word, the safe word, albatross, which is when we are talking way too much work and we're in a family context, and so that, and I, at least one of them, will use that card consistently and call albatross while rolling their eyes. So but it's again little shortcuts that we have sort of developed that seem a little bit flippant but evidence some deeper need to to your question, natalie, to separate the two. And I think for us as husband and wife man, we've had some. 

10:40
I mean, we had a pretty good argument yesterday morning and we both had to apologize and I think I try and take a I don't do this perfectly by any stretch of the imagination I try and if I get a moment of reflection, try and take a deep breath and say will I be as emotionally invested in this, whatever this thing is, in six months time, 12 months time? Try and take some time perspective, because my love and relationship for Allie will last a lifetime. This business issue, whatever this business issue is is coming and going like the wind and I try and step back and say, okay, will I care about this in six months? I know the answer is no, but it's kind of resets my brain. But I will love Allie at that point. So that's the thing I have to sort of manage the most or care about the most or prioritize the most and just let the issues pass by in a sense emotionally. 

11:40 - Allie (Guest)
So, andrew, is it fair to say that, in that you're figuring out what's important to hold on to, you're not just rolling over and letting it go, because sometimes the reason you're fighting is really important, and we need to. We need to sometimes just take a breath and slow down and hear each other differently yeah, I think it's. 

12:01 - Andrew (Guest)
I mean, the reality is I'm a conflict avoider where possible and ali's pushing on that button a little bit right now, and my response at times and I think that is part of the challenge, right, I can take perspective. But to Ali's point, sometimes it's really important that we have to sort something through and I have to be careful at times is my attempt for distance and perspective more one of conflict avoidance than and so this it's, it's a nuanced, constantly learning, working at, and the truth is like and I know ali does this and and vice versa, we give each other a hug, even when we don't necessarily feel like giving each other a hug, and that break of physical contact just sort of like okay, reset, and that actually helps me sometimes like, oh, okay, I still love this person. Yeah, let's have a conversation differently from a place of mutuality rather than opposition, and sometimes that just physical contact, a brief hug, just resets my clock totally. 

13:06 - Natalie  (Host)
It like disrupts this, this like million mile an hour bullet train of. I know what I want to say and I know I'm right yes, I'm always right, so problem solved, not just you, yeah there's andrew. 

13:22 - Allie (Guest)
in a sense, that's true. You are always right. It just depends on the lens we're looking at things through, and I think that's one of the things that, particularly in a family business remembering that there's multiple lenses and it's not a zero-sum game Nobody's all right and all wrong. And how do we figure out what this passion and energy or belief or whatever, is happening under the surface? How do we figure out what in that we actually need to harvest because it's good fruit, and what is just getting in the way unhelpful emotions, that, unless we, emotions can be constructive or destructive? And then somewhere in the middle, right, and if we can find the fruit that's resident in the emotion or the thought, then we've got something to work with and we get out of the what I call a doom loop of emotion that takes you into the darkness and the journey to no fruit, nowhere. 

14:14 - Natalie  (Host)
So, allie, when you say, in a way, andrew, you're always right, do you mean that, in a way, we're all always right? It's that there's a piece of what we're thinking or feeling that is accurate. We just kind of have to sift through it. 

14:27 - Allie (Guest)
For me, it's about emotional intelligence, right? The family businesses that are most successful have higher levels of emotional intelligence. So self-awareness, other awareness and the ability to self-regulate. So, in that sense, nobody's emotions are right or wrong. They're real, and so let's deal with them as if they're valuable and figure out how to honor them, even if we don't like them. 

14:53 - Natalie  (Host)
That's really interesting and great wisdom. Wow, tell me a little bit more Well, let's let people know before we get too much further down the line a little bit about who you guys are, because I did say you serve family businesses, so maybe, ali, tell us a little bit about Orange Kiwi, how you started and who you guys are. 

15:16 - Allie (Guest)
Well, we started because Andrew and I had a brilliant idea to leap out of our roles leading operations for a nonprofit and start a consulting firm. It's Andrew's ex-McKinsey and company. So we'd seen some great consulting models and we figured, instead of having to solve somebody's problems that just get dumped on our plate, let's go pick the problems we want to solve. So we did and we kept seeing the same patterns over and over and over Low to mid-market businesses. Similar things would happen. Consultants would come in, including ourselves, and you get a certain amount of change. But then, when you exited and took the pressure of that consulting force with you, the business might have incremental improvement, but it would eventually go down to what Andrew calls the waterline of the person in charge right, usually the owner, or often, you know, a family member that's a future generation, or a founder, often more entrenched with the founder. And so he said Allie, look, we've got to figure this out. We don't want to be those consultants, so you go get your PhD. 

16:22
So I went and got my PhD in business psychology and that really pivoted Orange Kiwi pretty substantially into privately held low to mid-market businesses. The majority FE USA, family Enterprise USA will tell you about 87% of mid-market businesses are privately held. Businesses are family owned. Of mid-market businesses are privately held. Businesses are family owned. So that took my marriage and family therapy degree and my business psychology degree and Andrew's brilliant way of looking at and framing issues and he takes a really visual approach put all those pieces together and it allowed us to start to serve people with greater effectiveness at the points of significant transition. 

17:06 - Natalie  (Host)
Very cool. So in that, from that perspective then and let's go back to so, for example, andrew, you had this transition and you guys just had a beautiful dialogue around what the real challenges are of being a family business, challenges are of being a family business, how has all of that, how does that all influence how you speak to other family businesses? And you know, because I can tell you, we all probably have the experience. Certainly, as a teacher, I have the experience of teaching what you know from your brain, from your you know you can teach what you understand intellectually, but it's very different to teach from actually experiencing what it is. And I think that layer of complexity of family that makes family business is really very unique and would be difficult to understand unless you really have had the experiences that you guys have shared with us today. So share a little bit with me about how it's affected, how you teach and coach and interact with family businesses, if it has. 

18:25 - Andrew (Guest)
I think Natalie touched on it. It's sense of identification, like if you were advised. If I was advising a young couple get married and we weren't so young when we did it but blend a family together, start a, start multiple businesses together and see what you can handle. That would be. It's not something I would advise and I think what I would say to family businesses I do when I sit with them. We might be talking about system implementation or ERP implementation or whatever that might be. I do less of the orange Kiwi work that Ali does these days and I'm more focused in that advanced side. 

19:00
But I sit with a lot of business owners. It's really hard and I think the fact that they are operating at the level of success and Allie has these statistics of the number of percentages of businesses that grow through significant curves and become of certain size most business owners, I think, lose perspective of what it is that they have achieved. We're always driven by what's next, what we have to achieve, what's coming now, the latest trend, the latest deal. We're always next, next, next, next, next. It's part of what drives us and gets us out of the chair to begin with and get in the middle of the battle which is business. 

19:41
But it's very easy to lose. In the midst of that crucible that is family business and being a business owner, it's very easy to lose the sense of achievement, accomplishment and being able to celebrate what I've achieved and what we're doing together as a family, because it looks like it should be easier than it is. It's hard, it's really really hard and I think just being able to step back and go, you know what we're doing really well together. We've got our dysfunction, we've got our stuff. But that's what I try and sit down with business owners and just identify and support and celebrate where they are, no matter how good, bad or ugly. That is because it is not easy. 

20:25 - Natalie  (Host)
That's a really interesting perspective. Easy, that's a really interesting perspective and I know, being a family business owner, that our audience, who are many of them, are family business owners. That will resonate to hear that, because it's true. You go in day after day looking for the problems and experiencing the problems personally as well as you know from a business perspective. So that's, yeah, that's really what great advice, even if families could just sit down and take inventory of their successes and where they are 100% 100%. 

20:56 - Andrew (Guest)
We as a culture don't celebrate nearly as much as we should. We're always and I think it's accentuated in the business culture we're always striving and really celebrating even our dysfunction, in the sense like just recognizing that that's who we are and it's not perfect, but what we're doing together is really hard and it's wonderful and special in the sense that we lose sight of that in the midst of the pressure. So that's how. That's how it's influenced me. I don't know about you, ali, in terms of how our experience together it influence how you work with on this oh gosh. 

21:37 - Allie (Guest)
So I came into conveyance a little bit reluctantly. I was quite happy. It's so much easier, like you said, natalie, just to let all the theories and model inform you know how I show up and move people through their thought process, reflection, decision making. It's a whole nother thing to sit there and go, oh crud, I'm sitting with you and guess what I was doing yesterday and what I'll do tomorrow? I'm going to deal with this exact same problem. Right, it's, that's a whole nother level, because then I have to. 

22:11
I can't project, I can't take my own baggage into that, and I think that's the thing for me that is both beautiful and challenging, all at the same time, is when I'm sitting with one of our family issues I know I've sat with other families that have had these things and to accept that in order for us to grow, we have to move through the conflict, we have to move through the tension, we have to be okay with letting people present and be who they are, not who we want them to be, and meet them where they're at. It's really hard, especially if we see a kid that's not going on a track that in the business that we would like, and we have to correct them. Right. And yeah, it's rough. It's rough to, it's rough to I'm going to say this I don't like this phrase very much, but it's rough to swallow the medicine that you're dishing out sometimes And's very good at holding me accountable. 

23:08
I hate. I know why he does it, but I hate when he says well, what would you tell a client? That's not fair Because if I were telling the client, I'd be a neutral third party in the conversation. That could facilitate both sides. But when you're in the forest you can't see above the trees and I know that just because I would say it to a client doesn't make it right for us in that moment, and I may not say it to a client who is in our situation at that moment. 

23:34 - Natalie  (Host)
Right right. 

23:35 - Allie (Guest)
That's a long-winded answer because that was a very emotional question. 

23:39 - Natalie  (Host)
Yeah, no, it's really interesting and I think it's really important that our audience hears this side of really of the consulting industry, if I may, because I think that there is there can be, there can be pushback, especially in these older generation family held businesses. And actually you used such a great word yesterday, allie, when I spoke with you. Was it rugged individuality or what was? 

24:09 - Allie (Guest)
Rugged individualism. 

24:10 - Natalie  (Host)
Yes, tell me about that because, for, for all of our family businesses, especially the younger gens who are like I've been trying to get my parents to like get some consultancy in here and or some facilitated conversations, tell, tell me about that and and what you've seen and what, how you speak to that kind of those people with those kinds of traits. 

24:33 - Allie (Guest)
So it's a mindset and when you think about who we are as a country, america was built on pioneers. People who came here were brave and they were bold and they're courageous and they had to figure out how to do it for themselves and that's passed down through both family behaviors and genetics, right that? All that, all that ways of being and doing, are passed down so over. It's one of the reasons America is one of the most innovative pioneering countries in the world. You know that we have competition now more than we ever have, but we still have this rugged, individualistic belief. We're competitive, we're bootstrappers, we got to figure out how to scrap our way to the top, and that creates a certain mindset. That mindset is a belief that I should be able to do this, I should be able to figure this out. I've been successful in the past doing this. I should be successful in the future doing this. 

25:30
Nobody's going to understand my business the way I understand my business and we get all these patterns rolling around in our head and it's a completely false mental model. That close. It's like a horse with blinders. We can't see outside of ourselves. And the thing that I love about Andrew and I have brought a consultant in to help us, and not a therapist but a consultant for the business for a specific need, and it was mostly because Andrew was trying to get me to see outside of my box, because I actually didn't want to. Anyway, that's what I was. I actually didn't want to go down a road that was the end of being really good for for orange Kiwi and it was that consultant that could just come in and help me see the world just slightly differently, not right or wrong. Just take the blinders out a little bit and widen my lens and get a new perspective, a new voice. And then, at the end of the day, it was up to me to choose it or not, and we chose part and left part chose part and left part. 

26:31 - Natalie  (Host)
In my mind, that's a win. So when you, when you engage with certain family businesses that have some of these real rugged individualists, how do you sit down with them in conversation? 

26:42 - Allie (Guest)
Well, usually one-to-one right, Because there's something, there's the beliefs that are driving it. We all have different parts and it's not that whatever that belief and construct is. The part of that person that is speaking loudest on those issues has needs and reasons that's hard to understand in a group context initially. So, really trying to understand the person and what is their inner world telling them about their lived experience and how do they see the other players? What we often find is, as they move through, that they don't really know why some of their beliefs existed. Or there's protective parts that are really trying to protect them because they can see. 

27:23
It's like I was talking about. You can see if a child or a person in your family goes down this path, it's not going to be good for them or the business. And if I can just protect them from doing that because I've done it, it's going to save the world. But that's just not how they're ever going to grow and they're going to be kept in these little boxes and then you're always going to be stuck in this loop. So, one-to-one conversation to understand how everybody plays and what everybody's needs are. All they need is little light bulb moments for them just to be open enough then to sit with the group and learn, Not tell but if they can come and just take that same little adventure and explore everybody else's world without fear of judgment, shame, blame or decisions being forced on them and stuff being done to them, it starts to take the conversation a whole different direction and deepen and shared understanding. 

28:15 - Andrew (Guest)
And I think we as consultants in general, we can view these kind of family business lifecycle challenges as a issue of logic and rationality. And I'll take something more from my world right. I deal with a lot of family businesses that have first gen still largely in control of the company, second gen either management team and or family members coming up through the business. Like our systems suck. Dad Like we need a new system. Right, our ERP is like from the 80s, it's green screen. This is terrible. Dad's like yeah, I have to take all this time every week to get my reports or whatever. Dad's got complaints about it. But dad doesn't seem to shift and he's like no, but when the rubber meets the road, let's forget the new system. 

29:04
And I think you, I start to think about okay, what is it that the owner is getting through? Let's call it antiquated ERP system. A lot of times it puts them at the center of the business. Everything flows through dad, and I'm using dad or mom, it doesn't matter really which. Everything flows through them. Checks have to be signed by dad. Dad has to approve all this. Dad has to approve all that and it feels antiquated. 

29:29
That is antiquated, but when we have an erp system and whoever comes in, the big fancy vendor comes and says this is the greatest whiz bang thing ever and it'll make your life so much easier and it's future-proofed. And dad or mom may not be conscious of that, but in moving to this new system, potentially they lose their seat of the ligament around which the business pivots and that. So what we often see is what is presented as a systems question, a money question, a management operation question, a structural question, whatever that business rational question is. It's actually not a business rational question. It's a emotional, psychological identity question in many cases, and I think often the second or third gen gets frustrated because this should be a simple decision and we keep giving more information. And it's not a question of information, it's a question of perspective and understanding. That's actually maybe the key to unlocking that situation. 

30:34 - Natalie  (Host)
Wow, that is if every family business isn't relating to that one little story. I don't know. That is so fascinating. I obviously experienced it and seen it. It's so true, and it is a really, not to mention the investment that goes into making new systems. So everyone who's been pinching their pennies for 45 years is like can't even conceive of that evolution of business. So, yeah, that's a really great example let's talk about. You said you have six kids between you and three are currently in the business. Tell us about the three that are in kind, of what positions they hold and how they each found their way there. 

31:24 - Allie (Guest)
The Jordan, who is our second oldest, actually started the business moved. I'll say I think it became a business when Jordan started to join because Andrew was doing it kind of all himself and he's like do you think Jordan want a few hours? Jordan had moved home. He moved out when he was 18. Rugged individualist, came back six years later to pay off college and save money fora house and took Andrew up on a few extra hours and I don't know Andrew, was it like a month. He was working full-time for us and he was just very good at data and analysis and brought skills that allowed Andrew to deploy his in other ways. And it was just the two of them for a while. And then fast forward, started to get more clients and more employees and we're about I don't know I think Jason, our oldest was was he like employee number 10 or 11? Somewhere in there? Jordan, because he helped, found the business, got ownership, got vested over a period of time or still vesting. He has one more year. None of our other kids have ownership. And when Jason came into the business we had to have a really hard conversation about why Jordan created an internship program. Jason was intern number one, beta test, so the younger brother training the older brother sponsored him in. Jason's now become a very valuable employee to the team. Moved out of that role runs all of our systems administration. He's won one of our culture awards more times than anybody else in the whole company we're about 30 employees. 

33:03
Now Our youngest child, andrew. He's so good at trying to help our kids find space and place and have opportunities and try new things. She was in high school and he offered her a job helping him with the accounting AR. So she did that. I don't know, andrew, how long Two years Until she graduated. 

33:29 - Andrew (Guest)
Sure. 

33:31 - Allie (Guest)
No. 

33:32 - Andrew (Guest)
I'm terrible with dates. Yeah, so it was sometime 18 months. 

33:36 - Allie (Guest)
No, it's more than that Could two, maybe three years. She did that as her high school job and it was great for her. She had a phenomenal job but, you know, graduated, now doing other things. A phenomenal job, but graduated and now doing other things. And so our other daughter, child number three, started this year and that for her, is more of a bridge role. It's not something she wants to do forever, but she was in a space and a season where she needed something steady and reliable and we had an opportunity and she's making the most of it. 

34:07
Do we want her to stay there forever? Absolutely not, but to get some skills and to try some new things. She's an artist, creative, theater kind of person, so it's a fit as long as it works for her. She doesn't report to either of us. She reports to our CFO. Oh, actually she also reports to her oldest brother for half of her job. So that's been an interesting dynamic. And then I think Matt also did a little bit of work for us just more data scraping, but more part-time, ad hoc kind of work, and he's off at Oxford getting his history degree, so we don't know what's going to happen there. 

34:47 - Natalie  (Host)
So it sounds like you guys have had a perspective of hey, if there's an opportunity and it works for you and you want to jump in, you're welcome. And also no pressure, do your life and we support you. Is that somewhat accurate or do you have other thoughts or feelings around it? 

35:08 - Allie (Guest)
You take that Andrew? 

35:09 - Andrew (Guest)
No, I think that's probably a fair summary. Now, lee, I think we've been. There's certainly been no pressure and at the end of the day it has to fit, and I think for us it's always been figuring out what's the right fit for both skills personality, life stage, marital stage. Personality life stage our marital stage I mean, jason is a rock musician and is about to go touring in Europe and we have to sort of think about how do we accommodate that and plan for that, be conscious of our broader culture that we're trying to build as a business. We have really high expectations. Our kids don't get to slide and they get managed as much, or if not more than that, than a regular team member. And finding and then recognizing that our kids have. 

35:51
One of the things I think that we struggle with at times is recognizing that our kids have weaknesses just as we do, and maybe they're not so good at xyz that we expect all team members. And that's been a tension like how do we manage that tension of not everybody does X task the same way, at the same time, to the same standard, and how do we manage that tension of like, well, other team members are going to be looking at that and going well, he gets to go. Why don't we get to do it right to find people of where they fit, corporate affording of boundaries and standards, recognizing where it's appropriate to give on that particular point, because we are family and we do want our family to flourish and we do love them more than our. We do love them more than their average team member. That's just the reality because they're family. So how do we love them well in the business without compromising the business with making them their best and going well together? 

36:53
There is no simple formula for that. It is a case-by-case, kid-by-kid basis that Ali and I have explicit conversations about. I think that's what we do do well is that we do have explicit conversations. It just doesn't sort of evolve and grow and sort of morph and grow and sort of morph into something we have been very intentional about every kid in the business, role, fit measurement. We do that really intentionally and I think we do that piece of it really well. 

37:18 - Allie (Guest)
And, I think, the scariest part for me. Anyway, andrew, I won't speak for you, but we let our bonus daughter. So Jordan, who's a co-owner, got married a year ago. His wife, our bonus daughter, is. She's amazing digital marketer and, as the landscape has changed dramatically, she's way ahead of the curve when it comes to how some of the large language models are being used for search over Google and how we have to reposition. It's been amazing. How we have to reposition. It's been amazing. But having to respect their marriage, our marriage, how do we model this for now, the next generation, and how do we get permission for people to exit? Come make a contribution. If it's not working for us, if it's not working for you, let's talk about how you exit. Well, because we're not going to let a lion with a thorn in their paw stick around very long. 

38:06 - Natalie  (Host)
That's so great, you guys. I'm guessing that your answer probably already included this, but have there been, if you had to name one or two landmines that you've seen in your experience working with family businesses, with parents and children, that you've really intentionally tried to avoid? Can you name a couple of them? I mean, you've done a beautiful job of already naming the map through it but what are kind? Of those things that people should look for, that you see kind of over and over again. 

38:42 - Allie (Guest)
Want me to take that, andrea? Yes please. Okay, the number one worst thing a family does is enablement, enablement. There are six mental health disorders that are prominent in entrepreneurial families ADHD, ocd, bipolar disorder, anxiety, addiction. 

39:04 - Natalie  (Host)
Wait, why? What's that connection? 

39:08 - Allie (Guest)
anxiety, addiction and wait why. There's other research on you know what they don't know for sure they don't know. There's a couple of theories. The one that resonates the strongest with me is when you look at the coping behaviors of people that have those challenges but still are successful. The coping behaviors are what make them successful and those coping behaviors are help fuel the entrepreneurial spirit and the drive and resilience right. So they've made the best of a tough situation. 

39:35
But we see enablement a lot in family businesses and instead of addressing the challenge and figuring out how are we going to deal with this in an intellectually and emotionally honest way without allowing this person to get stuck and robbing them of the opportunity to grow the way that they would out in the world when they're forced to face natural consequences that at the sibling level other siblings see it, employees see it it's one of the more destructive forces. And that enablement coupled with denial right, when the parent, the people in power, often parents are answering when they won't see it and they won't deal with it, that's probably the more challenging. And then the other. The second one is artificial harmony Saying we're all going along, you know, go along to get along, but there's this undercurrent of unresolved junk that kind of flows through everything. That's the second one. That's close second Wow. 

40:39 - Natalie  (Host)
Really good, thank you. Really good for people to let like settle in and see yeah, oh, that's really great. Okay, as we move sort of towards a close, I do have one question that we ask all of our guests but before we get there, is there anything else that the two of you would want to say to family businesses or any kind of reflections or last comments you want to make, businesses, or any kind of reflections or last comments you want to make? Because, again, as we started this, you do have a very unique perspective in this, in this landscape of family business. So any, any final comments? 

41:19 - Andrew (Guest)
or thoughts you'd like to share. I think I'd probably return to my earlier theme and I and I would I would summarize it as grace, in the sense that give yourself grace as a family business owner. What you're doing is really really hard. The things that Ali just talked about in terms of kids, we can analyze it, theorize it, psychologically define it, but those things are like porcupines and lions and closets and that is serious stuff. 

41:49
Even being willing to even just maybe listen to this podcast and saying, oh, that might be my kid, there is, I think, a measure of grace for that, like just that, just that acknowledgement is powerful. And you don't mean you have to solve it all, you don't mean you have to fix it all today, but just to give yourself grace, even in the identification. There is value and power there that can be really powerful in your business. Just to acknowledge and don't live in denial and just a little opening the window, a little crack into some of those places that are really hard in your family business, celebr, celebrate that little moment oh, I might've just seen something that I hadn't seen, that I did good today. You don't have to solve it all today. We don't have to fix it all today. We don't have to hire the consultant to have it solved by the next 30 day. Plan Grace for the moment of living as a family business owner, I think is super powerful. 

42:46 - Allie (Guest)
That's really good. Couldn't have said it better. 

42:47 - Natalie  (Host)
Yeah, that's really beautiful, allie, is there anything you do want to say? 

42:53 - Allie (Guest)
I think Angie nailed it Grace, and know that you don't have to be alone. So many family businesses are going through the same thing and we lock ourselves in a box unnecessarily, most often because we feel shame or disappointment and that's really hard to acknowledge. I think give yourself, grace, the first step and reach out to another family business owner or somebody that gets it. That's been on the journey Fantastic. 

43:20 - Natalie  (Host)
Fantastic. So the last question is do you think that your success as a family business has been due more to hard work or luck? 

43:36 - Andrew (Guest)
You go first All right. 

43:38 - Allie (Guest)
For me, luck is where preparedness meets opportunity. So I'm going to say luck, and the preparedness is hard work. 

43:47 - Andrew (Guest)
And I'm going to use I'm going to return to the top of the podcast, natalie, I'm going to use serendipity. Like it is, life is a journey. It's serendipitous. It doesn't flow in straight lines. We're not, you know, california aqueduct, where the water flows from one point to another point in a straight line. We're a river carved over time, and can I define that as hard work or luck? Heck, I don't know. It's all of the above and then a whole bunch more. It's a serendipitous journey that you never know where it's going to go and there's joy and pleasure in the journey, even when it's hard. So that's how I would respond to that vaguely, serendipitously. 

44:28 - Natalie  (Host)
That's beautiful. I love it. Those are two very unique answers we've never had. I love it. Thank you. Well, andrew and Ellie, thank you very much. Thank you for showing up with your vulnerability and your authenticity and your willingness to have a real raw conversation around family business. I know it's going to be very valuable to our listeners. It was valuable to me. I'm going to go back to my family business and go. Hey guys, here's some thoughts. So thank you very much. Thank you. 

44:58 - Allie (Guest)
Natalie, it was a pleasure.